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Talk:Mad Max/@comment-178.167.132.114-20150419232805
This is the film that started it all and though not a 100% post apocalyptic film, it showed instead a world well on the way to being so. The film was from 1979 and borne out of the various oil crises of that time. Most of the 1970s was dominated by oil crises with Arab countries and Iran insisting on higher oil prices. 1973 was a particularly bad period and worse threatened. 1979 saw complete law and order breakdown in Iran and for much of that year, that entire country seemed on the verge of collapse. So too was Afghanistan. Lebanon was locked into a dangerous civil war. Israel and Palestine was hotting up. A recession caused by all these crises lingered on. In the real world, thankfully things did not work out as bad. The Iran-Iraq and Afghan wars came into being and ultimately (just like the scripts for the second film showed), there was a US invasion of the Persian gulf in 1991 and Saddam did set fire to the oilwells. 9/11 and the Iraq war followed and the worst recession since the Great Depression came about in 2008. All more or less as Mad Max 2's explanation predicted but thankfully it did not spiral out of control to the same extent. But certain countries do look like Mad Max's world: certainly, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Libya come to mind. Back to Mad Max 1: In this first film, we are not told of any war or world crisis. We know fuel is scare though. We know crime and drugs have ruined society. But we are told in the second film and its notes that a more profound war develops out of the Iran-Iraq war with an expansion to Saudi Arabia and presumably sucking in the US and USSR/Russia. The second film says this was happening around the time of the events of the first film. To all intents and purposes, the first film's world was not that different to society as we know it. There are restaurants, cars, pubs, houses, clothes, TV, radio, shops, garages, hospitals and so on. But the poor state of the police buildings gives us a major hint something is not quite right. The next 2 films basically saw society break down completely and the script says it was first a conventional war that wrecks the world's economy and oil supplies followed later by a nuclear war between presumably the US and USSR. We are not told of how this affected other areas. Were there still some normal countries left? Or had another civilisation replaced the West and USSR? Back to the real for a minute: by the time the second film was made, virtually everyone was predicting that a US invasion of Iran was imminent. The then inexperienced Iranian government of Ayatollah Khomeini had made many poor decisions that essentially found it roped into a compulsory arrangement with the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards that proved disasterous for the once prosperous nation. A hostage crisis destroyed relations between the US and Iran and in early 1981, all the hostages held by Iran were released. Everyone assumed that then with the hostages safe, the US would blow the hell out of the Revolutionary Guards regime with airstrikes and give 100% backing to Saddam's invading Iraqis. Instead, this war did not happen and the US formed a more complex relationship with Iran. A US v Iran war has been rumoured many times but never happened. Mad Max 2 assumed that Iran defeated Iraq, that Saudi Arabia and Iran go to war and that the superpowers get sucked in. So, we can be assured that the following countries along with Australia suffered greatly: Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Refugees from these probably flooded the others. We are told also in the scripts that Spain, Italy and then West Germany were also badly hit. As well as this, the decay of morals is also depicted in the scene where a woman is confronted by a man about "Being seen with Jonathon last night". Clearly, cocaine and drugs in general are in plentiful supply and it is to be assumed that the Toecutter and his gang are drug dealers and it is very clear that some of the gang (Night Rider and Johnny the Boy) are drug users. An interesting story of what happened to other characters in this film would have been interesting. We know obviously the ones who died and about Max. 3 of the most interesting characters for me were: 1. Labatouche (or however that is spelt): He is the rich businessman who travels in body armour and armed with a baseball bat. He seems to be a car sales tycoon. It would be interesting to see how this type fared after the events of the first film. 2. Fifi: some (wrongly) assume that Humungus from the second film was Fifi. There are 3 major reasons why this is not the case. Max would know him and he would know Max; Fifi was a good and kind man who believed in trying to develop a better world. It would not be in his nature to act like Humungus; Even if he did go through a terrible ordeal, he would end up more like Max than a Toecutter. So, we can safely conclude Fifi is NOT Humungus. But it would be interesting to have this very important character revived in a new film. So, what happened him? The police force was through the wars in the events of the first film. Many get killed or injured. Max is said in the notes for the second film to be one of the last to leave. Fifi clearly admired Max (who he considered as hope for the world) and both men were close friends as well as work colleagues. Fifi would have seen many cops join the gangs and/or become indistinguishable from them. 3. May and the farm: May seemed to be some relative of Max' wife. What became of her and the farm after the events of the first film? And what of the places? The pub where the soul singer was? The pub where the Toecutter;s gang frequented? The shop where Jessie got the icecream? It is implied in the second and third films that NOT ALL of the post apocalytic world is as bad as what is depicted. Perhaps, a lot of the above still exist? Perhaps, Fifi now works as a private security man safeguarding the assets of people. Perhaps, a citizen based form of rudimentary local government prevails in places? Max helps people get to better places in both and we are informed that things improved for both sets of people. Even though Max has the option of going to someplace better, he prefers to stay in the wasteland. For Max, all the good went when he lost his wife and child and the depressed wasteland suits his mood.